


Rosewater

by persesphone



Series: Spider-Man: College AU [1]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Future, Bisexual Female Character of Color, Bisexual Liz Allan, Canon Compliant, F/F, Femslash, Future Fic, Girls Kissing, Girls in Love, Lesbian Character of Color, Lesbian Cindy Moon, Post-Canon, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Homecoming Spoilers, and doesn't know what to do with this information, but how can liz tell her when liz moves schools, cindy has feelings for a particular pretty girl in her school, likewise, liz has growing feelings for a girl who's her best friend, the first one i wrote but i hope i do them justice, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 07:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14665758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persesphone/pseuds/persesphone
Summary: Cindy thinks she might have a crush on a girl in her class—a captain of a Decathlon team, a girl a grade above, a pretty girl with full hair and fuller lips and a bright smile that lights up the room.And, Cindy thinks—she hopes—that the other girl might like her too ...





	Rosewater

**Author's Note:**

> This was based off of the comments of @duhmj on tumblr about a liz and cindy kiss, and "i’ve been craving some cindy moon and liz" and "i’m all for friendship between the two [cindy and liz] but i can’t say i haven’t imagined them together in a more romantic way— so why not both?"

“Kiss me,” she asks, features flushed, taunt with anticipation and hope and impending fear of the hesitation and expectation and heavy, copious emotion in the air.

Breaths hang in the air. Full lips press against hers and her lungs fill, halt, hold. She stalls.

* * *

The first kiss was unplanned.

Standing in the middle of the crowded hallway alone, she flushes, _shoves_ loosened strands of hair behind her ear.

* * *

When she’s fourteen, Cindy receives rose red lipstick for her birthday. It was gifted by her cousin—it’s to be kept secret, and for Cindy to never, ever wear it out in public until she’s of age.

The upper portion of her ovular body mirror is covered in smudged red lip stains. She hurriedly wipes them clean with Lysol wipes and the ends of used hand towels when she hears steps nearing her bedroom. And she’ll act like there was never similar thoughts and desires running through her head when questioned. And the lipstick will be thrown, hidden, falling in the far-most corner of her bed along the wall.

Then Cindy’s sixteen, and she’s brisk, curt, and she doesn’t even _bother_ to fake a smile as she passes a flimsy, messily folded note to the boy in front of her in AP Anatomy, her the middle man between the two boys in this conversation.

The teacher is an old man with a receding hair line and a mole on the top of his bald spot that Cindy just _can’t look away_ from no matter how hard she tries to; he wears bowties and suspenders and it might have been acceptable if he doesn’t have a bad habit of slobbering over his fingers when passing out worksheets.

Cindy has a few pet peeves, sure, but doesn’t everyone else?

She looks up, almost rolling her eyes immediately when she sees the boy in front of her handing back a folded paper note. Takes it, she then reaches her arm backwards to pass it to the receiver. She doesn’t remember either’s name—she doesn’t _care_ to—but the number on the back of the one’s jerseys seated in front is always 07. Cindy remembers because he boasts about the coincidence being his birthdate. Then afterwards, he’d go on a tangent about _James fucking Bonds_ , and she sighs. She glares.

This time his shirt is an ugly highlighter-yellow. Nike brand, she thinks.

Her eyes narrow.

The clock on the classroom wall is fifteen minutes slow.

She groans.

Cindy has a few pet peeves—

She’s just _tired_ , okay?

And when the bent end of the flimsy note is jabbed into the back of her shoulder, she doesn’t pass it forward this time. Instead, she unfolds it, to the dismay of both boys. The writing is in blue ink and careless, the previous conversations crudely scratched out in a switch-off of black and blue. The recent one at the bottom is a questionnaire with a single question:

**do you like liz allen?**

There are two checkboxes.

Cindy frowns, crumples the note, ignoring the hisses from her two fellow students, exits the classroom with the excuse to go to the restroom, and tosses the balled note in the waste bin by the door.

* * *

Cindy has a few provoked concerns.

Some of them have to do with pretty girls in short skirts and round, kissable lips.

A _her_. It’s always been a her.

Cindy’s never quite known when or where it started, but it’s sometime in ninth grade year. She is a grade behind but in the same age range as _her_.

Cindy learns _her_ name in freshman year; _the girl_ smells like shea butter and strawberry lipgloss and the orange Fanta sodas _she_ always buys from small convince shops. _She_ always has _her_ hair hanging in flowing locks, but Cindy met _her_ when she had cornrows winding up to a ponytail. _She’d_ been wearing a satin red top, black shorts, toes of _her_ black-and-white converse sneakers gliding across the carpet, bored in a library, and _her_ dainty chin lazily rolls across the palm of _her_ hand, meeting Cindy’s unintended stare and Cindy spaces out. When passing by, she sees that the other’s fingernails are painted. She remembers because her own eyes had been dazzling, gleaming, and following.

And Cindy had hated it.

Because she has no idea what to say to her, but it doesn’t seem to matter—she learns the other’s name soon enough when approached one day, mid year, and Cindy’s tongue jumps down her throat and suddenly her lips are too dry and she needs _water_. _Stat_! She manages to introduce herself without stuttering and sits straighter, pushing all her confidence to the forefront. She wonders if it’s her imagination distorting her vision when she notices the flyaway fuzz sticking up from the other’s cornrows. Or as time passes, the swirling in her stomach caused from the tilt of the pretty girl’s head and the vague lingering and whisperings under her breath when the two sit alone in the crowded room of the cafeteria or the library.

Cindy suspects it’s definitely her own imagination. It’s of more wishful thinking. Of influencers concocted from too much Disney and shitty C-list Blockbuster films about weddings and friends-to-lovers and the-one-that-got-away.

But she's tartly reminded that the other’s a whole grade year ahead—there seems to be almost _reluctance_ and _regret_ in those words—and she grimaces. Hiding her feelings with a smile, Cindy jokes about not being bothered by grade year, especially since they’re less than a year apart in age, and informs that the timing will shrink to seven months very soon.

The other, _pretty_ girl laughs, and shrugs, hair soft and buoyant. She does a cute shoulder raise that makes Cindy grin a little wider.

Cindy has a captivation in girls with large Bambi eyes and button noses, and when meeting Liz Allan-Toomes, Cindy is finally able to put a name to it.

* * *

She still doesn’t quite know how to deal about this.

* * *

Especially when Liz comes up to her one day and asks for Cindy’s number.

She definitely doesn’t know what to do with this information when spitting and sputtering across her question to _why_ and overheating ears blushing. She isn’t used to this. But then she notices some huge guy blatantly _staring,_ who is not even six feet away, Cindy’s jaw squares, tightens, and her shoulders roll. Confidently, she writes her cell phone number on the inside of Liz’s left arm just below her elbow in bleeding green Sharpie marker.

She’s invited to a Decathlon meeting and then added to a group chat which Cindy lurks in but is never active on.

Until she gets a private message from user _lizzybeth_. And like expected, Liz is kind but to the point.

[lizzybeth:] **_hey are you okay? you haven’t been in the chat at all_**

And Cindy’s thumbs hover over the keypad a beat longer than she would have expected. After several backspaces and rewording, she finally sends out: _yeah, i’m fine. just didn’t want to get involved_

[lizzybeth:] **_why not?_**

Oh, dang. Of course she’ll have to come up with an explanation—because _“I’ll look like a fool”_ isn’t a good enough answer, or because Liz’s constant posting of selfies that leave Cindy at lost for words and hesitance and only able to respond in keyboard smashes, and self-consciousness.

[mooney *wolf emoji*:] _no reason_. (she texts back, and then adds) _busy_

Three loading dots appear and disappear several times before Liz sends, **_ok good. i was afraid they had been mean to you_**

Knowing who else is in this chat makes Cindy give a snort at the possibility of them being mean. In the recliner chair across the living room, Cindy’s father passes her a questionable glance, hearing the numerous received messages notifications. Her phone vibrates at another rapidly received message.

[lizzybeth:] **_they’re being annoying and you’re cool. are you doing anything this weekend? want to go out?_**

And Cindy swears her heart leaps into the air.

* * *

She forgets it’s Liz’s birthday. She hasn’t bought a present. Instead, Cindy offers to buy lunch. Liz’s hair is held up by a large, pretty clutch-clip, dark bangs framing the sides of her face—and when she brushes one behind her ear, Cindy’s blood rushes to her ears and she quickly turns away.

Cindy has a few infatuations, she learns, she finds out, she _pinpoints_ and _names_ that afternoon.

It’s when they’re trying on expensive gowns they could never afford in dressing rooms at Céline. And it’s at a kiosk when Liz playing video game trials, and not being an expert at it but the way she gets into the mood of the game has all of Cindy’s attention. Then it’s when she’s feeding Liz her favorite pork pot stickers by chopsticks in the middle of the food court, a hand cupped under to keep the sweet chili sauce from dripping; Cindy had been asked to show Liz how to use the chopsticks, Liz still practicing, and Cindy getting lucky using them on the first try. (It was a sly ploy that went over her head.) And it’s in the restroom when she watches Liz reapply a shade of nude lipstick. Liz tells that it’s her _favorite shade_ , that it’s great for _kissing_. The other twists the ends of her sweater between semi damp hands. Then, Cindy is asked if she’s ever kissed someone before.

She shakes her head.

“You will one day,” Liz smiles, optimistic, capping her lipstick and dropping it back in the small purse dangling at her hip. “You’re cute enough.”

Unexpectedly, Cindy laughs. “God I wish.”

 _If only_ , she thinks.  _I hope._

* * *

Second year is a blur.

During summer vacation no one keeps in touch. And by the time they all return it’s like Liz has moved on—she’s become closer with this quiet, bookish girl, Michelle, and just received the news that Betty Brant won’t be able to continue Decathlon, and Liz seems to be infatuated on _something_ else. Slowly, it seems, with _someone_ else. Cindy’s stomach is uneasy.

There’s new students and the absence of old ones, and Liz and Cindy grow remarkably _close_ —close to where they’re always texting and meeting up in-between classes, skipping courses, getting in trouble for it, and buying Best Friends cookie-and-milk-shaped charm bracelets, and are on the unofficial VIP list to high school student parties.

Following summer break, a teacher is fired due to a scandal. There’s the continuous flaking of a Decathlon teammate, a boy who was hospitalized after a field trip last year. Cindy gets metaphorically blackmailed by a group who used to be her History project teammates just the week before. She runs into a classmate who turns out to be the cousin of Abe Brown, and who slips her a folded message—a blue flyer, a note written on the back in green Sharpie marker to check her chat private messages. On screen, it’s a message from Liz, asking if Cindy could hang out after school and check out this new store that recently opened. She goes, and there learns that Liz has been playing mediator outside Decathlon meetings, now a sudden matchmaker for Flash Thompson and a boy who would never like him.

“Wait,” Cindy starts. Pauses. “Does… Does everyone _know_ that he’s, what, bi? …Because I know his parents aren’t very, like... _you know_ …” His parents are more conservative and unaccepting of such things, she means.

Liz shrugs. But she’s known him for a longer than Cindy and so doesn’t mind the objective. One of the things Liz is planning on is getting the two boys to a movie together. So, naturally—obviously—she asks Cindy to come along to critic it with her first, using Flash’s high standards as an excuse.

And it works, of course. Luckily it works.

And in the low lighting, Liz is caught gazing. Reaching out a hand to the other, Liz fixes a wayward hair instead. It's an excuse.

Months pass. Liz gets more involved with school activities. She and Cindy drift.

There’s a girl named Abbey who is nice and takes an interest in Cindy. She refuses Abbey’s subtle advances, but when she starts catching Liz’s gazes drifting and lingering on a boy in Cindy’s year, her chest twists, her stomach drops, and it _hurts_. She decides to give Abbey a chance.

For the weeks that follow, Liz and Cindy don’t interact. Cindy is caught by Liz holding Abbey’s hand in the hallway, and pulls away like she’s burnt, hiding her hands like she’s suddenly ashamed. She’s asked about it once over texts; her answer is that ’ _it’s nothing liz_.’ It’s read without a reply given. Abbey and Cindy stop seeing each other quite soon after.

There’s the Decathlon Nationals and swimming in a hotel pool late at night and when getting back to their room, there had been expectation in the air the whole night so Cindy thinks, _hopes_ that Liz has something to say and she unconsciously clutches at the hem of her tankini bottoms. And while lying across the hotel bed together, the atmosphere is heavy and dizzy and she _swears_ they almost kiss—but Flash knocks in time to the jump-scare of the movie playing on the television and the mood is ruined.

There’s Decathlon Nationals and the almost-but-not-really-kiss and then they _almost die_ in an elevator. And then there’s the homecoming preparations; Liz says that she isn’t sure who to ask out of self-consciousness, out of _fear_ , so she settles on a cute teammate she puts too much faith into and tries not to look envious when seeing Cindy on the arm of some guy from Calculus, and she asks to talk to Cindy alone out in the empty school hallways later in the night and her mouth is _dry_ while simultaneously over-moist with lipgloss; she’s told there’s no Abbey, no kind of ties, and her mouth hovers over Cindy’s and everything is still and quiet and the sourly sweet aftertaste of punch juice. Cindy’s fingers entwine with Liz's in the moonlighting and there’s so much _expectancy_ and things unspoken and already said and everything is _pulsing_ and _on edge_ , readying to tip and flow over, and now, in this vacuum of private space and time, there’s no such thing as picking the wrong choices or being ran out on—and then they’re suddenly back in that hotel pool, floating in the warm waters side by side, and they’re sharing cheap food in the mall’s court, and they’re back to sharing earbuds while listening to Halsey and Hayley Kiyoko, and then Cindy’s breath holds as Liz whispers, inquires, “kiss me” in Midtown’s empty school hallway, so Cindy does, and then there’s a homecoming balloon sticking to her stocking, and all is so still and quiet and private and unreal, and then, and then, and then—

And then Liz isn’t there anymore.

Second year goes by in a blur, and then Liz is leaving the school. Transferring, Cindy’s told, due to some wild shenanigans with her father that Liz would rather not have out in the open. Cindy nods, understands.

They don’t speak for three weeks after—until Cindy’s awoken one night to a text. It’s a regular text message, not the group chat Liz made last year.

The last message sent between the two had been a week after Liz left Midtown High.

On Cindy’s glowing phone screen, there’s a single line of text that she has to read over once, twice, three times until she’s finally able to understand it:

[lizzie mccutie:] **_are we still friends?_**

In response, Cindy takes a screenshot, crops it until it only shows Liz’s contact name. She replies:  _last time I checked we were_ . And in a second bubble, she types: _it’s 1 in the morning. whats wrong?_

A brief silence passes before  a new bubble pops up: _**I miss you**_

And this time, Cindy’s left staring at her glowing phone in the darkness, the sudden rushing on adrenaline rising her awake.

[to the moon:] _you are bored?_

[lizzie mccutie:] **_that too. can’t sleep_**

Cindy’s thumbs hover over her screen’s keypad. She asks: _are you settled in? how is the new school?_

[lizzie mccutie:] **_it sucks_**

Cindy sends a laughing emoji to illustrate for her chuckling.

[to the moon:] _aww you miss us already and boring midtown?_

[lizzie mccutie:] **_the people here are ok but not as cool as you guys_**

[to the moon:] _no one is cooler than us ;)_

* * *

Cindy’s nineteen now. Her favorite outfits are a pair of cute Wet Seal overall shorts. Her signatures are blue Airhead candy, a small wolf-shaped tattoo underneath her left shoulder blade, and the cute pen-dot birthmark below her right eye. She wears patches and accessory pens on her backpack, highlighter makeup on her cheekbones, and candy-colored crop tops. Her pencil bag is filled with an assortment of highlighter markers that are constantly staining the underside of her fingertips. Her favorite color is now blue-green, and she’s still able to receive free cookies at Publix because she’s cute and her age is never guessed correctly on the first try—this is a constant irritation, a reminder that she’ll never be taken seriously—not now, not soon enough. And she crosses her fingers, crosses her heart, crosses her ankles before she’ll give you a nasty sneer for a dumb comment or a rude remark.

Cindy is nineteen, and it’s early on a Saturday evening when she sees the girl—or, rather yet, the girl notices _her_.

She’s tall, slightly curvy now, and her thick, luxurious dark hair is still buoyant, bouncing around her shoulders as she briskly walks through a crosswalk to meet up. She’s wearing wedge-heels and a high-waisted skirt, and the wave she gives Cindy as she approaches is far too casual for her attire—and in comparison to the gym shorts and sports top Cindy wears.

Cindy’s nineteen and she re-meets the girl whom she had been certain had been the one that got away. Her eardrums are pounding, and there’s a near hollow feeling in her chest quickly filling with adrenaline, and suddenly she's crumpling the looseleaf napkins nearby and she’s grinding her molars and she’s smiling widely, so widely, uncontrollably. She’s _nervous_ —she’s _suffocating_ —she’s _excited_.

Cindy’s never really felt something like this before.

* * *

 

There’s a dash of lipstick. A spritz of perfume. A twirl in front of an old, ovular body mirror. An old lipstick kiss mark stains the upper corner of the glass.

It’s late, and Liz is wearing a matching short, strapless dress—hers a pretty pale pink, Cindy’s a grey with red stripes. They manage to slither into a club, but receive X’s on the back of their hands in faded marker.

The music vibrates through the floor, up their feet, their calves, and Cindy laughs, shoulders beginning to bounce and hips rock. Her hair is teased too perfectly for it to _not_ be deliberate, and Liz nuzzles into it when they take a selfie together.

Liz is wearing thin golden bracelets and large earrings. She’s gotten an extra ears piercing since high school graduation, it was learned earlier. The jewelry, cheap and breakable, gleam in the dim, colored, flashing lights. Her hair is tumbling down her shoulders, a growing mess as she shakes it along to the bass of then music, and Cindy wants to thread her fingers through it. She wants to caress it. Wants to yank, hard.

But she doesn’t, of course. Because one minute Cindy’s excusing herself that she’ll “be right back” to the restroom, and the next when she returns—it's in a whirlwind of speedy forty-five minutes later when her back is freezing from the wall she’s pressing against and one of Liz’s hands are wrapping in her hair and the other gripping her bare shoulder.

Neither can believe it happens.

And simultaneously, barely a week later, they’re in Liz’s small four-bedroom apartment, her brown skin smooth and silky under Cindy’s hands; her mouth, full and painted in that same lipstick years ago she said was her favorite _kissing color_ ; Cindy’s is a pout colored rose red, leaving faint residues across the other’s neck, shoulders, and eventually lower.

“Cin,” Liz says, low, careful to avoid tilting her head to break the other’s concentration on kissing down to her throat. “Kiss me,” she whispers, features lax and flushed and free of hesitation and fervent fear, welcoming the heavy, copious emotion clouding the air.

Cindy’s expression hovers somewhere on the knife-edge between confusion and appalled. “I’m—” she bleats, stops, then nose wrinkling slightly at catching herself before she can ruin the moment. And to prevent any further mistakes, swoops up and squeezes her eyes shut and fusing their mouths together—

And it’s—spontaneous.

The kiss is ridiculously spontaneous.

She’s nineteen now, and it’s a Friday night. In two months, she’s to turn twenty, being alongside Liz.

The kiss is nowhere near unexpected.

* * *

The next kiss is hurried and it’s ridiculously calm.

It takes a pointedly obnoxious alarm to break them apart in the daylight. They’ve fallen asleep in each other’s arms, stripped down to tank tops and underwear. The room is brimming with wistful enthusiasm for their obviously secondhand performance as star-crossed lovers. It’s absurd how much Cindy’s eyes are so doe-like and magnificent. And it’s absurd how thickly the moment of ghosting lingering need punches the breath out of each’s lungs and it’s—

Liz doesn’t stop the other when she yawns and plants an awkward, sloppy farewell kiss on Liz’s cheek in the weekday morning light.

Cindy’s going to take her time with this.

And likewise, Liz is going to make the right decision this time, not a quick or convenient one.


End file.
